Title: Fight the Good Fight!
Scripture: 1 Timothy 1:18-20
Speaker: Nate Pickowicz
While it may not always seem like it to us by our senses, the Christian life is warfare. It is a battle between darkness and light. It is good versus evil.
There are times when the warfare is literal, where Christians are persecuted, hunted down, abused, imprisoned, or even killed. But far more common to most Christians is that of spiritual warfare, whereby the armies of hell wage war against the redeemed soul and try to dissuade and destroy them. No Christian escapes this kind of warfare.
Scripture tells us that there are three key opponents to our souls. The world, the devil, and the flesh. The world, as Scripture refers to it, is the kingdom of darkness that is set up against the righteousness of God.
It wages war against the Christian in hopes of getting us to compromise with sin and wickedness or diminishing our effectiveness or rendering us useless to God and rendering us apostate. The devil is far more sinister even than that. Scripture says that he is like a lion who prowls around looking for people to devour.
He, along with all of the demonic realm, seeks to afflict and attack people spiritually, all for the purpose of leading us away from our faith. Now, the third opponent is our own flesh, which consists of our own sin nature and our evil impulses. And in many cases, this enemy is effective enough to derail us away from repentance and discipline and devotion.
Our sinful flesh wages war on us, which is why the Apostle Paul declares in Romans 8 13, if you are living according to the flesh, you will die. But if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live. This is the nature of our warfare.
It is a holy violence against sin and wickedness. It is the daily battle that is unrelenting. And yet the Christian has been granted armor for the battle.
We have the armor of God. In fact, the Apostle Paul tells the Ephesian church, where Timothy is ministering, that in Ephesians 6, he exhorts them with these words. He says, And having done everything to stand firm, stand firm, therefore, having girded your loins with the truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace, in addition to all taking up the shield of faith, but with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one, and take up the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
And so passages like this make it very clear that the question is not, is there a fight? Rather, the question is, will we fight? Will we fight? And yet for every Christian, this is absolutely vital. In Paul's parting words to the Corinthian church, he tells all of them, be on the alert, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. That's an exhortation for Christians to fight, to manifest godly character, to be bold and courageous and mature and fight the Christian life.
Now, admittedly, this is an uncomfortable thought for most Christians. In fact, I have no doubt that some of you came in today saying, I hope this is a message about peace and joy. It is about peace and joy ultimately, but to get there, we must be equipped, we must be encouraged, and we must be exhorted.
And so that's what I intend to do this morning. If you would turn over to 1 Timothy chapter 1. We're going to finish out 1 Timothy chapter 1 today. Once again, Timothy is a pastor in the church in Ephesus.
He was installed there under the authority and the counsel of the apostle Paul. Whereas Timothy was accustomed to traveling with Paul, he informs the young disciple in verses 3 and 4, he says, as I urged you upon my departure from Macedonia, remain on in Ephesus so that you may instruct certain men not to teach strange doctrines nor to pay attention to myths and endless genealogies which give rise to mere speculation rather than furthering the administration of God, which is by faith. And so Timothy was charged to stay behind and to guard the church against error.
This was foremost on Paul's mind. So much good had taken place already in Ephesus, and in the early years, Paul knew that it all could fall apart in an instant if it wasn't contended for. And that's the charge of every generation.
It's one thing even for us to plant, but if we're not careful, if we're not vigilant, all this work could go away in one generation if we don't hand the torch off and instruct our children and our children's children to carry the torch and contend for the faith. And so again, Paul the Apostle in verse 5, he says, the goal of our instruction is love, love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. And so there is a goal, there is an end to this work.
However, this is contrary to some within the congregation who had ulterior motives. He says in verses 6 and 7, for some men, straying from these things have turned aside to fruitless discussion, wanting to be teachers of the law even though they do not understand either what they are saying or the matters about which they make confident assertions. See, Christian ministry is not only and simply about church cookouts and hymn sings and serve projects and game nights.
Those things are wonderful. We want to do those as often as we can to encourage unity and service and all those things. But ultimately, the ministry is about warfare.
It is about fighting a battle for truth, for godliness, for righteousness. And so that is the theme that he picks up in verse 18 through 20 is this exhortation toward holy warfare. Verse 18, he says, this I, this command I entrust to you, Timothy, my son, in accordance with the prophecies previously made concerning you, that by them you fight the good fight, keeping faith and a good conscience, which some have rejected and suffered shipwreck in regard to their faith.
Among these are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan so that they will be taught not to blaspheme. And so we're kind of moving ahead here in Paul's argument. And if you remember last time, the last couple of weeks, following Paul's testimony of conversion, he's recalling back to the time he was called into the ministry, called into relationship with God, and he circles back after that testimony.
He goes all the way back to verse 3 when he gives his initial command to contend against those who would derail the church in their teaching. And so the word he uses in verse 3 for instruct is the same word he's using in verse 5 and the same word he's using here in verse 18. Command and instruction here in this context is the same word.
This is a charge to keep error out of the church, keep error out of the church. After all, this is one of two key responsibilities for every elder. I remember being asked in a recent conversation, what is the responsibility of a church elder? Now, there's lots of responsibilities.
Our job description seems to go on and on and on, but there are really two things that we are entrusted with, Titus 1-9, to exhort in sound doctrine and to refute those who contradict. That is the work of shepherding. It is not only feeding the sheep where the good grass is, but it's also keeping them away from the bad grass and the weeds and the predators and anything else that would be dangerous to them.
That is the charge is to shepherd through teaching and refuting. Of course, it's possible that Timothy was maybe a bit timid about this. Perhaps that was his disposition.
He might have been a little bit nervous about that responsibility. It may also be because he was a young man. Maybe he lacked confidence in the ministry and he was worried about refuting those who maybe were older or more established than he was.
Either way, whatever the situation, his discipler, Paul, his spiritual father in the faith, he tells him in chapter 4 verse 12, let no one look down on your youthfulness, but rather in speech, conduct, love, faith, and purity, show yourself as an example of those who believe. So, he says it doesn't matter how old you are, Timothy, you have a responsibility to model a godly life and contend earnestly for the faith. And so, regardless of the circumstance, Paul is emphatic on making sure that he knows his pastoral responsibility.
This command, Paul says, regarding the opposing of false teachers and the opposition of error, he says, I entrust to you, Timothy, my son. This word entrust is paratithymi, which is a banking term referring to a deposit that's been made. Imagine taking your life savings, taking it all in one bank bag, mine would fit in a little tiny change purse, but taking all that you have and going to the bank and making a deposit and entrusting everything that you have, everything that you own to this one place, that's essentially what Paul is talking about here.
He says, this command I am entrusting to you. I'm securing a deposit in you, Timothy, and then he calls him my son, my son. He does this in several places, both in 1 and 2 Timothy, elsewhere even with Titus, but this is certainly a term of endearment, absolutely, he's talking to him as my son, he's the spiritual father, but there's actually more going on even than that.
It's a fatherly entreaty from the apostle to his closest disciple. Remember, he told the Philippians, for I have no one else of kindred spirit, for he has served with me like a child serving his father, Philippians 2.20 and 22. So Paul is appealing to Timothy based on the closeness of their relationship, but he's appealing not only for the closeness of their relationship, but he also says, this is the second line of entreaty here, not only am I entreating you as my son, my beloved son, he says also according to the prophecies previously made concerning you.
There's not just our relationship, there's something else here. Admittedly, this is a curious statement, and I'll tell you, even in modern times when we talk about the charismatic movement and words like prophecy, we get a little bit timid even about that because the word prophecy has been misused and the practice has been abused all around the world, and not only that, but the practice of prophecy in the early church is very different than what it is today. Most scholars think, however, that this is a reference to Timothy's initial calling and his ordination to ministry, and there's several reasons for this.
First about, as we read in 1 Timothy 4.14 where Paul exhorts the young disciple, he says, do not neglect the spiritual gift within you, then he says this, which was bestowed on you through prophetic utterance with the laying on of hands by the presbytery. So, you received a gift, Timothy, and you received this gift when we prayed over you and laid our hands on you at your ordination and we spoke the words of God over you. Now, whether prophecy in this context is referring to just taking the word of God that's already been revealed and preaching that, which is what I do, prophecy in modern times is taking the word of God and giving it to God's people, that's prophecy.
However, in the early church there were times, unique times, when there were new words that they were being received and they were giving those new words. It was a foretelling of God's revelation. That gift has since ceased, and now we do have the complete prophetic word available to the church.
So, we're not sure exactly which of those usages Paul's talking about here, but he alludes to it again in 2 Timothy 1.6. He says, "'Kindle afresh the gift of God.'" Timothy, at that point in his life, was very discouraged. He says, "'Kindle that gift, kindle it afresh, stir it up.'" He says, "'This gift of God which was in you through the laying on of my hands.'" Again, likely an event that took place at his ordination. And so yet, admittedly, ordination in the first century is, of the first few years of the church, is different than what it is in the remainder of history.
Today, ordination consists of really a somber yet encouraging charge to a minister, and that includes praying over them and then laying on of hands. And we've had the opportunity, the blessing of ordaining or calling a pastor in the past. I know that I was ordained into ministry and appointed into ministry.
It's a very special time. In the early church, however, the Holy Spirit had a more direct involvement and motivated prophetic utterance. Just thinking about even the Apostle Paul's own commission, his own calling, just going to read very briefly out of Acts 13 here.
This is Paul's calling and ordination. Now, there were at Antioch in the church prophets and teachers. Barnabas and Simeon, who was called Niger, and Lucius of Cyrene, and Manaan, who'd been brought up with Herod the Tetrarch, and Saul.
And when they were ministering to the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work which I have called them. And when they had fasted and prayed and laid their hands on them, they sent them away. So that's a sample of the early church, that kind of ordination into ministry.
Again, not too dissimilar from what we do, but that was certainly unique. And again, that's likely what Timothy's ordination was like. Of course, we cannot be sure exactly of what those prophetic utterances were.
We don't have them written down, but I can assure you that some kind of prophetic utterance given in this ordination was not unlike 2 Timothy 4, when he says, I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is the judge of the rising and the dead, and by His appearing in kingdom, preach the word. Be ready in season and out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with great patience and instruction. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance with their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth and turn aside to myths.
And he says, but you, be sober in all things, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry. That passage is oftentimes read and charged at ordinations and installations of pastors. And so several times in his letters, Paul is reminding Timothy of the charge to minister faithfully.
To minister faithfully. Why? Because we're in a war. We need generals to lead troops into battle, spiritual battle.
And so, in light of this close relationship with his disciple, and in accordance with the prophecies previously made concerning him, Paul exhorts Timothy to fight the good fight. Fight the good fight. Twice this word is used in the same phrase, strato, it means to war, to literally to make war.
You could render this, the command here, to war the good warfare. That's how Calvin actually translates this, to war the good warfare. Again, this is not foreign to Scripture.
Later in chapter 6, verse 12, Paul repeats the exact same sentiment. He adds a modifier, but he says, fight the good fight of faith. Fight the good fight.
At the end of his life, as he's about to die, Paul declares, I have fought the good fight. I have finished the course. I have kept the faith.
And so, this metaphor is repeated over and over again and extends elsewhere. There's a common theme in Scripture, certainly in the pastoral epistles, that is of a Christian soldier. We're considered to be soldiers for the Lord.
Second Timothy 2.3, he notes, suffer hardship with me as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. 1 Corinthians 9.7, Paul refers to himself as a soldier and even includes other ministers along with him. For example, Philippians 2.25, Epaphroditus is called my brother and fellow worker and fellow soldier.
We saw earlier when we looked at Ephesians chapter 6, believers are regarded as soldiers for Christ who were called to take up the armor of God in spiritual warfare. However, this is not a chest-thumping kind of warfare. We don't take up a sword or a weapon.
We don't make our warfare in the streets to attack people. We don't run them over and cut them down and hurt them and destroy them. That is not the nature of Christian warfare.
We don't have a hero complex. No, this is a serious life or death combat, but it exists in a different realm. This is vitally important.
What is the nature of our warfare? Because you say things like this, fight the good fight, but people attribute that to a lot of things. What is the nature of our warfare? Turn with me in your Bible to 2 Corinthians chapter 10. 2 Corinthians chapter 10.
Again, to just restate, some have mistakenly believed that Christianity's goal is to overthrow governments, kill dictators, assert influence by force. During the Second World War, there was even an attempt, many attempts on Adolf Hitler's life and some of those attempts were even made by groups that were flying under the banner of Christ, that Jesus wants us to go and kill Adolf Hitler. I don't believe Scripture exhorts us as believers to do such a thing, nor to take over governments, nor to overthrow secular institutions.
Now will our efforts have an impact on the world, on institutions and on people? Of course they will, but what is the nature, what is the nature of our warfare? 2 Corinthians chapter 10 verses 3-5. Paul says, For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh.
I want to say that again. The weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. And then he qualifies what that is.
We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. Embedded in there is the world, the flesh and the devil, the warfare against those things. This is a spiritual warfare.
Verse 5, we're warring against speculations, fortresses of human philosophy. When someone comes to you with an ideology, you don't fight them, you don't punch them in the eye, but you do war against their philosophy, not only to win them over to Christ, but to assert the truth. We fight human philosophy, we fight arguments, we fight disobedient thoughts.
When your thoughts betray you, when your thoughts attack you, popular language is intrusive thoughts, thoughts that don't really belong to you, thoughts that you do not desire to think, but when you hear these voices in your head, in the subtlety of your conscience, and they're things that are not of Christ, you have to war against them. You don't believe the evil things that you hear either outside of your mind or inside your own heart. You war against that.
A lot of believers are stuck in this negative, sinful self-talk, and we talk ourselves down. Some of it's out of self-pity, some of it's out of self-deception. It comes from all kinds of places.
I think about Psalm 42, why are you downcast, O my soul? And David's just going on and on and on, and oh, I used to go to lead them in the throng of assembly. I used to do this, and oh, my soul is so parched, and he's going on and on and on. At a certain point, he tells himself, hope in God, for I will again praise Him.
He is the help of my countenance. He's my God. Stop it.
You have to tell yourself, stop it. You fight. You fight human philosophy.
You fight arguments. You fight disobedient thoughts. This is mental.
This is spiritual. We deal in truth claims. You fight error with truth, beloved.
That's why studying God's Word, studying doctrine, is so important. Because you have to fight what's erroneous and wrong with truth. Remember where Paul told Timothy to make war.
He says it's against teaching strange doctrines, myths, speculations, fruitless discussions, disputes about the law. He doesn't say, go pick up a sword, go pick up a weapon and fight people. What did Jesus tell Peter in the garden? Put your sword away.
What are you doing? That's not how we win. We don't win with blunt force. This is a mental, spiritual, theological, philosophical war.
And here's the thing, it must be fought. We are called and commanded to fight this battle. But guess what? This is not a battle that's bad and wrong and terrible for us.
He says this is a good fight. This is a good fight. Go back to 1 Timothy.
This fight here in verse 18, it's a good fight. The word is kalos in the Greek. It's noble or excellent or virtuous.
This isn't some sleight of hand, vindictive, seedy fight. This is not low brow. This is not below us.
No, this is a fight that is worth fighting. This is a hill you want to die on. And by God's grace, this is a hill, the gospel of truth, that we will eventually die on and yet be resurrected in Christ.
So this is a noble fight, an excellent fight, a good fight. It's a fight worth fighting. It's a fight for truth.
It's a fight for sound doctrine. It's a fight for the gospel. It's a fight for the honor of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And so Paul exhorts his disciple, this command I entrust to you, Timothy, my son, to fight the good fight. Of course, Paul doesn't do so without also reminding him about how he must fight this fight because you tell someone fight and they go, okay, how? How do I do this? He adds in verse 19, keeping faith and a good conscience. This word translated keeping is holding on to, wrapping your arms around, grabbing.
Hold on to this. There's an effort that has to be made on our part. But what is it that Timothy is called to keep? Two things here in verse 19.
First he says faith. The Greek is the word pistis. It's faith.
Paul has already alluded to this in verse 5. He says the goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart, from a good conscience, and from a sincere faith. He's referred to this already. This seems to refer to a personal faith exercised by a believer.
Understood this way, fighting the good fight, it means holding on to your profession of faith. It's like you're a tiny little ship on an ocean and the waves are battering you around and you're always at risk of capsizing, except that you have an anchor. And the anchor is Christ, isn't he? And so our ship will be battered back and forth along the waves, and yet we're called to hold on.
Keep the anchor planted. Hold on to your faith. Do not let go of your profession.
Doesn't matter how many people attack you. Doesn't matter how many things happen to you in this life. The truth of the gospel, that is the anchor of your soul.
So it's personal faith, believing and trusting in the promises of God, trusting Him. It's certainly true. But there's another angle to see this phrase, because some scholars have actually taken this faith, this keeping of the faith, is actually more than even your personal faith, but it can also refer to holding or keeping to the faith, i.e., the Christian faith, the body of sound doctrine.
See, we've already seen that in verse 10, that Timothy has been charged with refuting any and every teaching that is contrary to sound doctrine. And so to fight the good fight of faith is to be willing to, as Jude 3 says, contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints. There is a body of teaching, certainly it is the totality of Scripture, it is the Word of God, but it's the Word of God rightly understood and applied.
There is a body of teaching that has been handed down to us as believers, and we are called to understand, to learn that body of truth, wrap our arms around it, and then contend for it. Every single believer has to do this. And to elevate it, every single pastor, every single elder, there is a responsibility.
This pulpit, there's a reason it's big, by the way. I designed it this way, because the body of truth that is resting on this pulpit is huge, and the responsibility is bigger. We are called to contend and defend the faith.
There's plenty of people who want to destroy this truth. We have to contend for it. There's a reason we're bold.
There's a reason I yell, because this truth is the most important truth that we could hold on to, more than anything else. Elsewhere, 1 Timothy 4, 16, he instructs the disciple to pay close attention to yourself and to your teaching. It's not just about the doctrine, by the way, it is also your life.
Some elders, some pastors, some teachers fall because their doctrine becomes wayward. They begin to teach error or even heresy, and they disqualify themselves by their heretical teaching. But others fall not because of their doctrine.
They fall because of their life practices. And sadly, more and more these days are falling, not because they have bad theology, but because they fail to apply that good theology to their own life. And they don't contend for that theology with their own life.
And so he tells them, watch your life and your doctrine. Your life and your doctrine, vitally important. That's the nature of our fight.
You're holding on to both. Again, pastors and elders are entrusted with the responsibility of fighting for this truth against error and apostasy. We're called to contend.
Keep the Christian faith. Of course, you might be able to harmonize both of those things I've already said about personal faith and contending for the Christian faith to say that fighting the fight, the fight in the good fight, is to maintain faithfulness to the truth, both by believing and defending. And so he notes that we are to keep faith.
But we're also called to keep good conscience. Good conscience. What does this look like? Well, this word conscience, what is the conscience? The conscience really is the mechanism that measures right from wrong.
All of us have a conscience. All of us do. Every single person in the world has a conscience.
Now, that conscience can be seared. It can be misdirected. It can be damaged.
It can be led astray. For believers, our conscience, our Christian conscience, is informed and tuned by the Word of God. That's why if you're a Christian and you don't ever read your Bible, your conscience is going to be just carried around by whatever you're following.
Whatever the news says. Whatever your friends tell you. Whatever you feel like you want to do.
Well, I feel like God would want me to do this. How do you know? So, the Word of God directs and tunes and applies the word of truth to our conscience. Again, chapter four, verse two, by hypocrisy and sin, it's possible to wound and to sear your conscience.
You can sin against your own conscience and start to lead it astray. And then as you're going down, it's like you take one step off the path and next thing you know, you're a mile away. And so what you think is right or wrong is actually way far off because your conscience has been tuned by your own personal desires or your sin and not to the Word of God.
And so we're called to keep a good conscience, a good conscience. One that is sensitive to righteousness. One that is sensitive to the committing of sins.
Your sins should bother you. And not just the outward things that you do or the bad words that you say, even the inclinations of your own heart. Your sinful heart should bother you.
When a person will come to me, say it's in a counseling room or something, and they'll say I'm really bothered by something and they're wrestling with their heart, they might start to feel nervous and feel like because they're so sinful, maybe they're not a Christian. But I would contend and argue with you that maybe it's possible that the reason that you're so bothered by your sin is because your conscience is actually accurately tuned, but what you have to do is repent and walk in righteousness. A sensitivity to sin is a good thing.
We have to have a conscience that is able to know when truth is being attacked. Of course, Scripture warns that partaking of sinfulness renders our witness to be null and void, and it weakens our ability to fight the good fight. In fact, Peter says virtually the same thing, just a few verses to read to you.
In 1 Peter 4, he says if you're reviled for the name of Christ, you're blessed. People hate you because of Jesus, you're blessed because that means that your life is bearing witness to Christ. He says, however, make sure that none of you suffers as a murderer or a thief or an evildoer or a troublesome meddler.
But if anyone suffers as a Christian, he is not to be ashamed, but he is to glorify God in that name. And so Peter is saying, listen, if you're suffering for Christ, praise the Lord. However, if you're suffering and you're thinking it's because you're a Christian, but you're actually engaged in sin, you're not fighting Christian warfare.
You're actually losing the battle. But you're claiming to be persecuted because you're a Christian and you're being hurt. But that's not the nature of it.
We have to maintain a good conscience. Our conscience has to be right. A person who wrecks themself with wickedness is totally ineffective for the battle of truth.
But in keeping a good conscience, you're able to contend for truth and to bring glory to God. John Stott notes here that Timothy possesses two things which he's carefully guarding. He says, number one, an objective treasure, the Christian faith, and a subjective treasure, a good conscience.
We keep both. You must guard your life by conscience and your doctrine by truth. Yet not everyone who professes to be a Christian does this.
In the second half of verse 19, we read that regarding fighting the faith and the good conscience, he says, some have rejected this. They've rejected and suffered shipwreck in regard to their faith. There are some people within the church, when there comes to a point where they just reject this truth, they throw it away.
They refuse it. They stiff arm it. They reject the faith.
They damage their conscience. And Paul notes that even at that time, there were some in the church that had rejected faithfulness, and thereby, he says, they suffered shipwreck in regard to their faith. This word here, there's only one other place that Paul uses the word that's rendered shipwreck, and the only other time, actually, it's Luke writing about Paul being literally shipwrecked, but Paul's the only one who uses this, and it's a poignant term.
Well, why? Well, because Ephesus, Ephesus was a key seaport in the ancient world, and so the horror of shipwreck was on their minds all the time. When you sent dad or your brother onto a ship, and he left town off to go and fish or do merchant trading or whatever it may be, there's a good possibility he might not come back. There's a possibility he could be shipwrecked and be stranded and could be stuck somewhere.
So shipwreck was a dangerous present concern. To be shipwrecked is to have the vessel carrying you fail and suddenly find yourself in mortal danger. That's what apostasy is.
It's when you reject the Christian faith, and the Christian faith, by the way, is functioning as that, like an ark to save you from the flood, and suddenly you blow it up and you begin to sink it, and now you're in mortal danger. It happens when, according to chapter 6, verse 21, professed believers begin to go astray from the faith. They stop believing the Bible.
They grow cold to the love of Christ. They neglect confessing their sins, and they harden their hearts against God and against His people. And when they do this, their faith becomes shipwrecked.
To give up fighting the good fight is to raise the white flag of surrender and to scuttle your own ship. In Paul, in verse 20 here, he gives two examples of men who had done this, and he names them here in the letter. He names Hymenaeus and Alexander.
Now the identity of both of these men is mysterious. We don't actually know who they are for sure, even though we do see their names popping up in Scripture. Hymenaeus is a less common name in Scripture.
It appears in 2 Timothy 2.17, along with another man named Philetus. Both of these men, Paul says, had been known for their worldly and empty chatter, but what is that ultimately? He says specifically they had gone astray from the faith, or from the truth, I should say. Well, how did they go astray from the truth? He says that they were saying that the resurrection had already taken place, which understandably was upsetting the faith of some.
If this is the same Hymenaeus that we're talking about here, then we know that he rejected the doctrine of Christ's return and final resurrection, and thereby he was shipwrecking his own faith, and he was damaging the faith of other people. What is that? Well, that's saying that Christ is not coming back, and there is no resurrection. You say that to people, you teach that to people, it robs them of their hope.
It's not just a nicety that we say, oh, Jesus is coming back to redeem you and rescue you. It's not just that. It's not a nicety.
It's truth. The Lord is returning to judge the righteous and the wicked. It's a fact, and yet that fact is a point of hope for us.
But he had veered away from that and was teaching error, Hymenaeus, that is. What about Alexander? Alexander was a more common name. There's several Alexanders.
There's two Alexanders named in the New Testament as opponents of the apostle Paul, and both of them are found in Ephesus. In Acts 19, a riot breaks out in the city instigated by a Jew named Alexander, and he opposes the work of Paul. That's one Alexander, we think.
Another one is listed in 2 Timothy 4.14, where Paul notes, Alexander the coppersmith did me much harm. Well, what did he do? We don't know, but he does say the Lord will repay him according to his deeds. Alexander, whoever this man is, he did something to oppose Paul.
He hurt him in some way, and he kept on hurting him, and Paul doesn't retaliate. Instead, he only prays to the Lord and says, Lord, will you please deal with this man who's hurting me? May the Lord repay him according to his deeds. Either one of these men could have been the Alexander that Paul refers to in 1 Timothy, but both of these men, whoever they were, Hymenaeus and Alexander, they had rejected the truth, and they had shipwrecked their own faith, and yet Paul had already responded to the situation.
What does Paul do? Does he take up a pen and a letter and write them a really nasty note? Does he get up and start blasting them publicly and calling out all of their faults line by line? Does he list them here? Yes, but we have very little. Paul doesn't take up his own offense. What does he do? He notes that he had handed them over to Satan so that they would be taught not to blaspheme.
This is an interesting statement, very interesting, frankly terrifying, but no doubt interesting. What does Paul mean when he says he's handed them over to Satan? Well we see this notion elsewhere in 1 Corinthians 5, Paul is addressing a man in the church who had committed incest, and the church wasn't doing anything about it. They hadn't even addressed it.
He tells them that he had heard of a man in their midst who had had his father's wife. It was a situation where this man was sleeping with his stepmother, and the church didn't even want to talk about it, they didn't even go to the guy and address it at all, nothing. But Paul hears about this and he responds, he says, I have already judged him who has committed this, in light of the fact that the church hadn't addressed it yet, he says, in a church discipline situation, through excommunication, Paul says in verse 5, I have decided to deliver such a one to Satan, for the destruction of his flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.
And so Paul is talking about handing someone over to Satan, which essentially is removing them from the loving fellowship of the church, removing them from the godly influence of the church, and placing them back into the realm of the world, sticking them back where Satan is the ruler, and letting them just be absorbed into that culture. Essentially it's the final step of church discipline, when you treat someone as they are no longer a brother and they are gone. As long as they're here, and as long as they're willing to repent of sin, and as long as they're willing to abide and grow in the Lord, then there's always hope, there's always a chance.
But when you get to a point where you simply will not repent of sin and you will not change course, there comes to a point when you have no choice. In the case of this incestuous man, it was for the purpose of driving him to ruin, so that he might repent finally, somewhere, somehow, and find salvation on the last day. For Hymenaeus and Alexander, they had no doubt been talked to about their sins, they had no doubt been confronted, and they simply would not repent, and so Paul takes the drastic step of church discipline, of driving them out, to teach them not to blaspheme.
See propagating false teaching blasphemes the name of the Lord, and it defames the name of Christ. But as we see, it's actually a merciful thing to drive a person who's doing this back into that situation, so that they might be disciplined to the point where there is repentance, there is a return to the Lord. Church discipline isn't just for kicking out sinners, that's not the purpose.
The purpose of church discipline is in the hope that maybe they will see their error and they will return in repentance and want to be restored. The goal is to rescue straying sheep. How does this fit with fighting the good fight? Where does this come in? We have to remember that Satan wants to destroy the church, and make no mistake about it, he wants to destroy this church too.
Every week I see evidences of it. Opposition, maybe it's grumbling and complaining amongst us. Maybe it's someone who takes issue with us and wants to shoot us down.
Maybe it's a nasty email that we get from somebody in town who's upset about us, that doesn't happen as often, but it has happened. Maybe it's just systems of the world that want to shut us down, drive us out of relevance, pass laws against us, whatever it may be, close us down, get us to stop having services. We've seen all of it before.
But to this we make war against the sins, against the errors, against the falsehoods, the divisions, the follies, the wickedness, both false teaching and sinful living. And we must be willing to go to great lengths to preserve God's truth in a world of evil. But this is non-negotiable.
It's important for all of us, but this is non-negotiable for church leaders. An elder, a pastor, a church leader is charged, charged with the mandate of waging this war to preserve and defend the gospel, to contend for Christian orthodoxy, to deal appropriately with sin and error. The Apostle Paul did this tirelessly to the end.
In the closing words to Timothy years later before he passed, he closed with this, he says, I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I've kept the faith. In the future there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge will award to me on that day, but not only to me, but also to all, to all who have loved His appearing. What about you? Will you make war to this end? Will you fight the fight of faith? Again, not with external, fleshly, sinful impulses, not with a sword, not with a weapon, not by going online and blasting people who don't do what you want them to do.
How do you fight this warfare? Well, first you fight with holding on to truth, holding on to your faith, and then you guard your life. You keep a good conscience before God and before others. You hold on to your integrity and you stand firm in the faith.
Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank You for this exhortation from Your Word that You call us soldiers and You call us to contend earnestly for the faith. You call us to examine Your Word, to learn truth, to defend it, but Lord, You also call us to examine our hearts and to keep a good conscience.
Lord, these things are hard, they're difficult, but we know that through Your power, through Your influence, we are able to stand, not because we have a strong spine, but because it's Your arms that are holding us up. But Lord, how is it that we even come to know You? How is it that a sinful person can even stand to do any of this? Lord, we know that in the Gospel, You redeem the lost. We know that through this message of the Gospel, we know that You, Lord Jesus, You've lived here on earth among us as a perfect man, true God in human flesh, and You lived righteously.
Your conscience was perfect and pure. Never sinned against the Lord or against anyone else, and yet You were sinned against and You died on the cross to pay the penalty for sinners like us. And Lord, You not only died to pay for sins, You also rose from the grave to bring new life.
And You promised us that if we turn away from sins, if we repent, get right with You, agree with You about what's true, repent from our sins and trust in You, we'll have life and salvation, but also the same power that raised Christ from the dead also will dwell in us to live righteously, to do what's right here, to wage this warfare that is the good warfare. We thank You for the love and the strength and the courage and the righteousness that we've received in Christ. Lord, help us to be worthy of the battle.
Help us to be armored appropriately. Help us, O Lord, to stand firm. We pray this in Jesus' name, Amen.